


Warmth

by tango1_1



Category: Ouran High School Host Club - All Media Types
Genre: Beach fic, Drabble, Multi, Sharing a Bed, haruhi is melencholy and gets cuddled
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 04:09:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15134798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tango1_1/pseuds/tango1_1
Summary: Haruhi is reminded of where she belongs.





	Warmth

**Author's Note:**

> I've been rewatching Ouran High School host club, and it's eating me alive. 
> 
> Please enjoy this short and sweet fic!

She didn’t know what to expect, but it wasn’t this.

It was too loud. It wasn’t still enough.

 

\--

 

“Camping?” Haruhi had echoed when they first suggested it.

It wasn’t summer, but it was getting close to it. Long past the first birds chirping and the cherry blossoms falling, Ouran had switched over to their summer uniforms, leaving the sweet and mini-skirted clients of the Host Club to swoon as they sat out on the balcony terrace of _Music Room No. 3,_ sipping ice-tea and running hands through newly styled hair. There had been a lull in the flirting as a crowd gathered around Tamaki and Mitsukuni, cheering as they watched the two compete to see who could eat the most ice-cream in one sitting.

“Yeah,” the twins replied in unison, before Hikaru continued, “Our mom has a studio out on the coast where she goes sometimes to find inspiration. It’s small, but it’s right on the cliffs so it has some gorgeous views.”

“Also lots of seafood,” Kaoru butt in.

Haruhi rolled her eyes. “You guys know it’s not really camping if you’re doing it indoors, right?” she said flatly.

“Oh, Haruhi,” the two of them sighed, tossing their arms over her shoulders and leaning in.

“Haven’t you ever heard of a cabin?” asked Kaoru, giving her a kiss on the cheek. Off in the distance was the sound of high-pitched squealing. Annoyed, Haruhi turned away from Kaoru and looked to Hikaru, who was nodding pensively.

“Mmm hmm,” he added, grinning, “you could call it rustic. It has a fire pit though, because what are we, animals?”

Haruhi groaned, but it only seemed to egg them on. Before long the two were loudly chanting the words, “Let’s! Go! Camping! Let’s! Go! Camping!” while marching around her in tiny, irritating circles. She was about to tell the two off when someone shouted to them from across the room, voice muffled by ice cream.

“You guys are going camping?!” exclaimed Hani, “I wanna come!”

That was the beginning of the end.

 

\--

 

It had been a long day. It had been a high energy day– inner tubes and hiking boots piled into a car too long to take the the sharp corners of seaside cliffs, followed by two hours in a crowded back seat; Mori on her left, hunching over, and Tamaki to her right, visibly fantasizing about only god knows what. However, the minute they piled out onto the beach, a shiver passed through them. The fog had gotten caught between the cliffs and the sea, leaving Summer sunshine behind in favor of rolling waves and wet, salty wind. The boys around her began to complain, but Haruhi wasn’t listening. She loved the way the wind wiped out the sounds around her. She wondered how loud she could yell without her voice being heard.

“We’d better get inside,” Kyouya said.

While they didn’t end up swimming, it was easy to enjoy the evening for what it was. Tamaki opened every window in the house, saying the breeze made his hair look better, and Hikaru and Kaoru raided their mother’s liquor cabinet. They came back fondling a beautifully packaged bottle of champagne, and Haruhi couldn’t even scold them, because they added a little extra to her glass with a wink and a smile.

That night, they were teenagers and nothing more. The seven of them sat around the bonfire in the Hitachiin studio room, red from drinking and shouting and smiling. Tamaki told stories of when he was a Shakespeare kid, and the the twins did a dramatic reading of all their favorite Nekozawa quotes.

“I’m not emo, I’m neo-goth.”

“Life is just foreplay for the sweet release of death.”

And their favorite: “It’s as if you're a cursed wax doll, shrouded in darkness and filled with malevolence!”

Haruhi laughed so hard she cried.

Hours passed, and their revelry eased off into murmured stories and drowsy giggling. When it was time to sleep, Tamaki and Kyouya took dibs on the only two beds in the house. Hani and Mori shared the couch, while Haruhi told the twins to stop complaining as she set up a futon on the floor. The three of them ended up near the fire pit because Kaoru suggested that it would be warmer, but no one remembered to close the windows. She slept on the very outside, and it was cold.

 

\--

 

She didn’t know what to expect, but it wasn’t this. Haruhi was a heavy sleeper, after all, except when it came to thunder and lightning. But this wasn’t lightening, and it certainly didn’t sound like thunder. It crashed, though. Each time waves hit the cliffs, currents of air blew in through the windows, shaking the fire and causing Haruhi’s hair to tickle over her cheeks. She closed her eyes and shivered, and tried to go back to sleep.

It was too loud. It wasn’t still enough.

Quietly, Haruhi lifted the blanket up off her body and tiptoed down the hall.

The cabin wasn’t small. With a bedroom, a guest room, and two bathrooms stocked with expensive products, it was already three or four times the size of her home apartment. But then again, what did she expect? She had been over to the twin’s house once or twice, and it made this place look shabby by comparison.

Haruhi wasn’t bulletproof. She was human, after all– a human with emotions and fantasies, desires and fears. She knew from the moment she stepped foot on the Ouran Academy campus that her life for the next three years would be, on occasion, a battle against envy. Though, after seeing the social pressure placed on her not-so-common friends, she had come to terms with the fact that being rich did not mean being happy. She was okay with that. And, she was also okay with enjoying luxuries where they were offered.

However, at this moment, she wanted to be more cold.

At the end of the hall was a small sliding door leading onto the house’s balcony, and on that balcony was a chair swing. The porch lights were off, but a string of traditional Japanese lamps were strung along the structure of the swing. They glowed orange. Haruhi didn’t sit, at first– she closed the door behind her, and walked over to the very edge of the balcony. It went out past the cliffs, suspended over the ocean far below, but Haruhi didn’t feel unsafe. Rather, she felt invigorated. She reached out to feel the wind glide between her fingertips, opening and closing her palms before placing them safely back on the railing. She peered down and noted that the water looked an opaque black, rather than taking on the luminescent glow that it did during the day. She loved it – Haruhi loved the beach. She loved the ocean. No pair of delinquents pushing her into it, or jealousy of a thing she didn’t even desire, could stop that.

She knew that no one would hear her.

 _“I AM HERE TO STAY,”_ Haruhi shouted into the distance. She meant it. She loved it here. She never wanted to leave.

“Haruhi?”

She barely heard their voices over the sound of her heart beating, and the wind. In fact, she was so enveloped in her raw throat and cold nose, that it took her by surprise to find two identical bodies approaching on either side. The twins looked down at her with concern.

“You okay?” asked Kaoru.

She nodded.

“You want to sit down?” asked Hikaru.

“Yeah.”

The three of them made their way over to the chair swing, and sat close. It was more quiet with a roof over their heads, making it easier for them to speak, and listen.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Haruhi explained, “I thought it might help to get a little fresh air.”

Hikaru laughed. “You mean a little more? It was already freezing in there as it was.”

“Yeah,” Kaoru agreed, “I was closest to the fire and even I was shivering. We were both surprised to hear you get up and go outside.”

Haruhi didn’t respond, Instead, she asked: “Do you like all this?”

“Like what?” they both questioned.

“Like– I come to school and get pampered, and go on crazy high-budget antics, and put on intricate costumes, but at the end of the day, I get to go home and read a book. I take breaks from the fantasy. But you guys _live_ this, I just can’t imagine how you live this, like it’s normal.”

The two kept silent for a while, but Kaoru spoke first. “It’s exhausting.”

“It’s exhausting,” Hikaru trailed closely behind. It was the first time she has heard them speak a beat off from each other, and wondered why that was. “But–” Hikaru continued, “It’s also really fun, I can’t deny that.”

“I don’t want to be rich,” Haruhi said, not quite speaking to either of them. “I don’t want to be rich, but I had so much fun today. I want to keep being a host, and an Ouran student, and stay here with you all. And I’m not sure I want that to end.” It was only then that she made eye contact with either of them.

“Then stay,” they both said, like it was simple.

“We’re not going to let you fall behind–” this time it was Kaoru who spoke, “–so don’t treat us like we’re out of reach.”

Haruhi smiled, and took hold of both their hands. Hers were cold. “Then stop calling me a commoner,” she teased, but there was softness in her eyes.

The twins rested their heads on either shoulder, and the three sat like that, rocking the swing, for what felt like hours. It was loud, and windy, but between them was an unspoken agreement.

That was, to meet each other in the middle, sometimes.

To allow themselves to be different.

To stay.

“I think I’d like to go inside, now,” Haruhi finally said.

They closed every single window before climbing back into bed. Hands rejoined, bodies side by side by side. Hikaru and Kaoru wrapped themselves around her, and Haruhi was no longer cold.

“Thank you,” she said to them, but they were already fast asleep.

  



End file.
